Just When You Thought You Understood The Word "Off"

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/01/446240.aspx">http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/01/446240.aspx</a><br /><br /><i>"[The Pocket PC] can be on, it might be able to be off, and it can be somewhere in between. A purist will call that in between state "suspended" but I like to anthropomorphize my devices, and "sleep" is more catchy. When the device is asleep, the screen is off, and programs aren't running. In fact, by and large, programs don't even know that the system went to sleep. We never tell them, and we expect them to act as though it never happened. While the PocketPC [sic] was asleep, they just didn't run."</i><br /><br />Note that he hasn't gotten to "Unattended" which is when it is on, but sleeping while doing something, like checking email with the screen off. 8O It is really not that complex once you think about it, and even less so when you learn you don't <i>have</i> to think about it. But it is interesting.

[atommax]

Interesting blog from Microsoft about the power states in the new version of Windows Mobile 2005.

But does anyone know if the more troublesome problem with the maximum number of processes have been fixed?
- or is it still only possible to run 32 processes simulataniously in Windows Mobile 2005?

Furthermore, what about the driver memory model? Is that still split up in in Windows Mobile 2005 so that there is a memory side for applications and a memory area for drivers?
- Will the "Bluetooth Manager" still raise "Not enough memory" exceptions in Windows Mobile 2005?

If anyone has sources from within Microsoft.. please let me know about the above "problems" status in Windows Mobile 2005?

Regards,
Kristian Reesen Skouboe
Computer Scientist

[surur]

Just a question. What power state is my wife's XDA Jam (PPCPhone) in when it can receive IM messages while its supposedly suspended. Do PPC phones also just pretend to sleep?

Surur

[Ed Hansberry]

Just a question. What power state is my wife's XDA Jam (PPCPhone) in when it can receive IM messages while its supposedly suspended. Do PPC phones also just pretend to sleep?
Yes. that is the "unattended" mode. the device is on, but the screen is off.

[surur]

Does this mean I would get better battery life with Messenger not running?

BTW, I love these blogs It really shows the engineers have confidence in their software, and look forward to the future of the platform.

Surur

[atommax]

But does anyone know if the more troublesome problem with the maximum number of processes have been fixed?
- or is it still only possible to run 32 processes simulataniously in Windows Mobile 2005?


According to internal sources and MSDN the maximum number of running processes in Windows Mobile 2005 is still 32.

See here for more information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wcemain4/html/_wcesdk_windows_ce_memory_architecture.asp

Furthermore, each process can only reserve up to 32 MB of RAM. This is also a known limitation in the Windows CE architecture.
See here:
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=840&amp;context=SSSUDG&amp;dc=DB520&amp;uid=swg21212437&amp;loc=en_US&amp;cs=UTF-8&amp;lang=en

Hope they soon change the architecture of the operating system, because the hardware is most likely capable of handling more processes. Furthermore, PC's do not have this limitation (it is much higher :-) ... and Windows Mobile 2005 is a "Pocket PC".

Regards,
Kristian Reesen Skouboe

[thunderck]

Think of this like your cell phone. It is in a very low power state waiting for a tower wakeup message to start ringing or such. I really like this because potentially wlan drivers could wake the device up. VOIP would be helped by this and others.

[Jason Lee]

Does this mean I would get better battery life with Messenger not running?

BTW, I love these blogs It really shows the engineers have confidence in their software, and look forward to the future of the platform.

Surur

Yep, you will get veeeeeeerry slightly better battery life if messenger is not signed in. PPC phones also use a very little bit more battery if you leave the gprs connection connected. But it is hardly noticeable.

Anything that causes the GPRS radio to transmit/recieve will use a little more juice if the device is on or "off". :) You will notice a substantial battery hit if you have messaging set to check your email every 10 minutes or so through out a day. The device is never really in sleep mode. It spends most of it's time in unatteneded and uses the radio every 10 mintues. But again, this is probably less battery drain than 10 minutes of wifi. ;)

[gibson042]

This blog is so great. It is well written, informative, topical, and makes moot many of PPCT's all-too-common 10+ page debates. One more RSS subscription for me! 8)